Those Arts Council funding decisions: 6 months on

I first wrote this blog during the initial reaction to the announcement to the last Arts Council England (ACE) National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) funding announcement back in November. It’s probably for the best that I’ve sat on it and only now got around to publishing it, with the benefit of more reflection and time. During the initial period of reaction I saw many ‘hot takes’ and much anger on social media (something recently repeated with the BBC’s recent classical music decisions, which I won’t go in to here), and I’ve been reminded of something that Barak Obama said. Namely; “The world is messy, there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People you are fighting…share certain things with you”.

And indeed the decisions made by ACE were messy, and there was no way that they wouldn’t be. Arts Council England is to some extent damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they had made no changes to the portfolio they would, rightly, been criticised for not supporting new and emerging organisations. But given the pot of money hasn’t changed, the only way these organisations can be supported is by reducing or removing funding from others. 

The portfolio can’t stay the same forever and not every organisation remains interesting or relevant for all time. Many have, to be honest, rested on their laurels, and while they may have been innovative in the 1980’s, no longer remain so now - newer, younger more nimble organisations have come along, deserve to be funded, and the 'establishment ‘organisations haven’t always reacted to the competition, leaving many looking a little… lacklustre in comparison.

Take new music. Much has been made of organisations that have lost funding in this area. But fantastic new ensembles like Manchester Collective and the Paraorchestra have gained funding for the first time. Neither is dedicated to new music but both major on it. Maybe new music no longer needs to exist on its own, and is better off presented within the narrative, thematic programmes that organisations like Manchester Collective so excel in? We don’t have to do things the same way forever.

I say the pot hasn’t changed (and it hasn’t) but it’s interesting to observe the narrative that quickly was established of these being ‘cuts’. Organisations and areas of work have been cut but the overall pot hasn’t changed. As well as Manchester Collective and the Paraochestra, other classical music organisations gained, with the National Children’s Orchestra (whose board I sit on) gaining funding for the first time and Orchestras Live, which promotes performance and engagement in under-served areas of the country getting a very substantial uplift. I point this not just as a matter of fact but to also highlight the way the communications around the announcement were so very badly handled.

Some of the reaction to the changes though was unedifying. ACE and the government were accused of ‘defunding culture’. The CEO of ACE has been compared to Stalin by composer Thomas Adès, who also directly targeted ACE’s Head of Music, someone who I know from experience works tirelessly for our sector. Others have said that the decision to cut English National Opera (of which more anon) points towards some sort need to conform to ‘pro Brexit optics’ - which seems somewhat far-fetched. The Royal Opera House was described as being ‘underfunded’ and the actor Zainab Hasan said “The government has done nothing to nurture us…and everything to destroy what makes our industry brilliant”

None of this hyperbole does our industry any good and only underlines people’s prejudices of ‘entitled luvvies’. You’d have thought from the reaction on Twitter that some mass cut of arts funding was underway, when, in fact, as we’ve seen, the same amount of money (if not a little more) , was being invested.

Government funding of the arts isn’t a meaningful vote winner (as in, it won’t sway enough people to matter to political parties), and the extreme ungratefulness exhibited by some in our sector for continued funding of the arts at the same level as the previous funding round, (not to mention newer initiatives such as the hugely beneficial Orchestra Tax Relief, worth £62m since 2016), while many in the UK are struggling to put food on the table or to heat their homes isn’t doing us any favours.  

I was reminded of the extremely negative reaction many in the arts had to the governments support during the pandemic, particularly the ask from the Department for Culture Media and Sport that that support be acknowledged publicly by those that received it. It was reflected back to us in one advocacy group I was part of that those in the DCMS, having fought very hard for the support from the Treasury, were disappointed by the sectors response and questioned why they’d bothered. Again, shoring up the arts probably wasn’t on many voters minds during a pandemic, and personally I thought the level of support the arts received, while not perfect, was fairly generous from a governing party not exactly known for its generosity to the sector.

The demonisation of ACE also makes me uncomfortable because it is an organisation full of people that love the arts. They, like everyone else in the sector, has taken decision to forge a career within arts and culture, because it is something they believe in. They didn’t take a job at ACE because they wanted to become a ‘Stalin of the arts’.  They joined to be part of the UK artistic community and to play a role in ensuring as many people experience it as possible. Like all of us, they may make some decisions others might question, and some which are mistaken, but they don’t deserve the opprobrium aimed at them.

All this said…there was at least one glaring oddity in the decisions, that being the decision to remove funding from English National Opera (ENO). 

ENO seems, to a relative outsider to the opera world like me, to be doing everything right for ACE. It’s accessible, with its under 35’s ticket scheme unrivalled by competitors. It’s relevant, in repertoire, production style and through initiatives like their drive-in opera. It tackled a relevant health issue through its ‘ENO Breathe’ programme. It has been bold and imaginative in how it tackles classical music’s dire problem with diversity. It, unlike many arts organisations, does marketing well and understands social media (their instagram is utterly fantastic). It’s an unpretentious, relaxed place where you’re as likely to see people unwrapping their home-made sandwiches in the interval as you are to see people quaffing champagne.

There’s actually nothing wrong with suggesting that ENO do more out of London, but it is utterly unfeasible that a company of 300 people could move with 20 weeks notice - something that has now been recognised with the recent announcement (/climb down) of three years of funding at close to previous levels. The BBC Concert orchestra has, after all, been in the process of moving to a still unannounced location outside of London for several years now, and that is an organisation probably less than a third of the size. And, of course, ENO has already moved out of London - Opera North having been set up as English National Opera North back in the 1970s. Forcing ENO to compete with its former self doesn’t make any sense.

Of course, there is much nuance here, and many external pressures. ACE needed to shift funding out of London and perhaps ENO represented an easy way to obtain a chunk of money to do this. The argument that London needs two opera houses is a nuanced one, and this is not an age that favours complex debates, so perhaps this was felt to be an easy cut to make. One might argue that cutting the Royal Opera House would make more sense - its audience is more monied, more influential, and that combined with its ‘high end’ brand should make private fundraising easier. Cutting an organisation frequented by the establishment in a way that ENO isn’t however was probably considered politically impossible by ACE though.

The decision to cut ENO (and others), with very little transparency as to why, risks undermining the legitimacy of the whole NPO process, in which trust is so important. ACE attaches significant strings to its funding, understandably, and its agenda sets much of the sectors direction. For the most part that agenda is in alignment with where the sector wants to go anyway - with an emphasis on access, participation, engagement and diversity. But having decisions made in seemingly arbitrary ways and for reasons not fully divulged starts to undermine that symbiotic relationship between ACE and its clients.

If there is to be sector belief in ACE’s investment principles, then how can an organisation that has done so much to meet them, particularly in comparison to its very direct and relatively unscathed comparator, be cut? Why is it that long term issues, such as the fact that ACE funds four symphony orchestras in London (not to mention other chamber orchestras), continue to be un-addressed at the same time?

No one doubts that this was a difficult decision for ACE. Money had to be moved out of London, but surely given the time that was had to make the decision a way could have been found to both  ensure decisions were made in a really transparent way (this is public money after all), showing that they directly relate to ACE’s much publicised investment principles, and to handle the very predictable media-fallout in a better way - it is a huge shame that the good news story of organisations gaining funding for the first time was almost completely drowned out.

But, then, as Obama said, life is messy…